Pain erupted in Aragorn's right arm. Shocked, the Ranger barely had time to reach his sword as another arrow bounced off of the wall of the cave, clattering to the ground. Aragorn spun around with his sword raised, his eyes darting around to see who was attacking him.
Although it was dark, it didn't take much for Aragorn to see that it was yet another Orc as the creature moved forwards at an alarming rate, his bow now tossed aside as he drew his sword.
"You think you stand a chance?" The Orc hissed in a gravelly voice as Aragorn stepped
protectively in front of Legolas with his sword at the ready. Aragorn didn't respond, his heart racing as he realized just how poor his conditions were. His arm was throbbing fiercely from the arrow, Legolas was severely injured and delirious, and they were in the middle of nowhere, with no help nearby.
But suddenly, as the Orc came closer, a sort of peace came across Aragorn. Maybe he was alone in this, but after all it was only one Orc, and even if he did have an arrow in his arm he had been in plenty of other battles with worse injuries and had made it out victorious. Legolas needed him, and he wasn't going to let him down. Not if he could help it.
So when the Orc had made his way over to Aragorn, throwing a wild swing at him, he was more than slightly caught off guard as the human blocked it with shocking strength. It was then that the Orc looked up and found himself meeting a pair of dark, collected eyes that looked back at him with no sense of fear whatsoever.
And for some reason, that vaguely disturbed the Orc.
Before the Orc could think, Aragorn released his lock on the Orc's sword and had slashed at the Orc's chest. Black blood began to spill from the gash immediately, and the Orc let out a growl of pain from the unexpected injury, glaring down at the wound in shock. Just that one second of distraction was enough for Aragorn, and he seized the opportunity to stab the Orc in the leg and smash the hilt of his sword against his face.
The Orc fell to the ground in pain, clutching at his leg. When he looked back up, he found a sword tip hovering inches before his face.
"Tell me," the expressionless Ranger said softly; "where you are from, and why you have been following us?"
The Orc spat at his feet as he replied, "Do you think I would tell you, human? Because you are mistaken."
Aragorn merely smiled slightly. "No, I didn't think you would, but it was worth a shot." Then, without hesitation, he plunged the sword inside of the Orc's neck.
After the Orc finished choking on his own blood, Aragorn let out a small sigh and looked at his bloodied arm. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the arrow out and was relieved that it didn't hurt too terribly - but then, he had adrenaline pumping through his veins from the fight. For that much he was thankful.
He knelt next to Legolas again, placing his hand against the Elf's forehead. The fever had worsened, and now the Elf wasn't even moving. He was breathing in short, ragged gasps, occasionally let out a small groan of pain, and the area around his poisoned wound was darker and wider in radius.
His mind racing, Aragorn knew he was running out of time. With fumbling fingers he pulled out his small bag that consisted of numbing and healing herbs he had brought with him from Rivendell, and realized with a sinking feeling that there was no way he could start a fire. The cave was damp and bare, and the snowy mountains certainly had no trees. Even if there were trees, they would be wet and useless.
But despite these hardships, he wasn't going to give up hope. As he prepared the proper herbs and began to try and stop the poison, he recalled the time Lord Elrond had sat him down as a child and talked to him about the importance of confidence in oneself….
Aragorn had been practicing archery in the small courtyard on a warm spring day. Despite being relatively good for his first few times at the bow, he still found it irritating as he continuously missed the red bulls-eye, hitting instead the black outer rings.
"But why do I need to use the bow?" He complained to Elrond only hours before as they ate breakfast. "I like the sword more anyways."
His foster father had smiled at him, taking a swig from his goblet before answering kindly, "Aragorn, it's a good skill to learn. There will be times where you will need to use both weapons, and in certain situations you will need a sword more than a bow. In others, you will prefer the bow over the sword. Each are equally important in battle."
And so Aragorn sighed and proceeded to eat his dinner in silence.
Now Aragorn fired yet another shot, and the arrow managed to fly completely pass the target, embedding itself into a tree nearby. Irritated, Aragorn hastily drew another arrow and tried again. But each arrow that followed missed by a farther and farther shot, until finally Aragorn threw his bow down in frustration and sat on the grass, trying hard not to cry.
Within minutes he felt hands gently pull him into a hug, and he shoved his face into Elrond's robes.
"I can't get it!" He sobbed. "I keep trying and trying but for some reason I just keep missing. I-"
"Aragorn," Lord Elrond said in a stern but soft voice. "Are you telling me that just because you missed a few times you gave up?"
Aragorn was silent for a minute, and then he said in a timid voice, "I guess so."
"My son, you can never give up. Never lose hope. If you keep trying hard at something, and you make yourself believe that you can do something, then you will do it. Promise me you will never stop trying."
And so Aragorn, with a small sniffle and a wipe at the eyes, promised. And when he got himself up and practiced again, telling himself that he can do it, he slowly began to hit the bulls-eye...
It took many long, painful hours for Aragorn to slow the poison. He was missing many tools that would have helped him to take care of the poison quicker and less painfully, but still, by the time he was almost done he was just thankful it appeared to be working.
First, he had given his friend numbing herbs so that he wouldn't react to any pain when Aragorn would begin his procedure. Because there was no actual water around, Aragorn had to gather snow and hold it in his hands until it began to melt, and then mixed the herbs with the water in the small bowl he always carried for emergencies such as these. The water was cold, but it worked.
Then, he began to practice the Elvish techniques he had been taught back at Rivendell to withdraw poison. Because the poison had been spreading so rapidly through the Elf's body, it took much longer than usual, and was therefore much more painful of a procedure. Halfway through, Legolas began to thrash around due to fever and pain, but he was so weak that he didn't affect Aragorn's work.
When he was finally finished Aragorn leaned back wearily, rubbing his eyes and fighting his growing fatigue. He looked at the wound and was glad to see that it looked a little better. Definitely not close to being healed, but the poison was gone and that was what was important. As for the Elf's other injuries, Aragorn couldn't do that much. He only had a few stitches that he had brought along the journey, and he had used them on the originally poisoned wound. Worried about the blood loss the Elf would suffer from if he didn't do anything, he cut a piece from his cloak and wrapped it tightly about the injury as an attempt to stem the bleeding. The gash certainly deserved much more attention than that, but as of now there was nothing more that could be done. The other injuries looked less life threatening - the bruises and minor cuts were ugly to look at, but they weren't causing any real harm other than pain. Upon further evaluation, Aragorn found that the Elf had a broken rib, but being that it hadn't punctured a lung (Aragorn could tell it hadn't; he could feel where the break was) it also wasn't too serious.
After covering the Elf with the rest of his cloak, Aragorn finally stood up, stretching as he did so. His own body ached something fierce and he found that his arm was killing him again, but he couldn't focus on that right now. He needed to figure out how he was going to get Legolas and himself out of this place and how they could survive. There was no food, no warmth, and enemies seemed to come from every corner.
Looking with some disgust at the body of the Orc he had slain, he removed his sword from the Orc's neck and spent a moment pondering on what he should do with the body. Finally he decided just to bury it under some snow. Normally he wouldn't mind simply throwing the body outside of the cave, but he was weary of another foul creature happening across it - and thereby knowing that people were nearby. He dragged the Orc outside, staying near the entrance to the cave so that he could still listen out for Legolas should he awake, and quickly threw snow upon the body. When the majority of the body was covered (he figured the heavily falling snow would finish his work for him) he smoothed the snow over and, after checking his surroundings to make sure no one was around, he went back inside the cave.
Legolas was sleeping fitfully, constantly turning and muttering under his breath. As Aragorn sat down next to him, taking his friend's hand and squeezing it gently to provide comfort, he found himself glowering over the events that lead to their misfortune.
It was his fault, he felt, that they were here. He had asked Legolas to join him on a trip, just a small travel.
They were sitting in the outskirts of a forest, enjoying the sun and eating snacks as they watched the wind blow through trees and talked about their lives so as the other could catch up on what they were doing. Aragorn suddenly proposed the idea of a trip, and Legolas seemed to be interested.
"To where?" The Elf had asked with a smile, leaning slightly against his bow.
"Oh, I don't know," Aragorn had responded. "Anywhere. It's been awhile since we have been together, my friend."
"Indeed it has," Legolas nodded. "You've been busy."
"And you haven't?" Aragorn retorted, but he was smirking as he said so.
Legolas laughed in the musical way that Elves do before responding. "Of course I have," He said, "But I always thought that a Ranger such as yourself has tendencies to busy themselves with petty things."
"This is besides the point, mellon-nin," Aragorn said with a smile. "Will you accompany me or not?"
"Of course, Aragorn," the Prince said, standing up. "It should be fun."
They left early the next day, and before they knew it they were heading towards the Carahdas mountains. Everything went downhill from there.
They were attacked, and it came so suddenly and unexpectedly that even Legolas, with his Elvish hearing and sight, didn't know it was coming. The Orcs came in astounding numbers,with fifty of them at the least coming out of nowhere. The horses they were riding were shot and killed, and before they knew it they were facing the Orcs on foot.
In the beginning of the battle the two held their own admittedly well. They took down Orcs swiftly, with Aragorn basically hacking his way through left and right and Legolas using his two knives in the way that only Elves could.
But then it happened. Legolas was fighting four Orcs at once, and one of them somehow managed to get through Legolas' knives and stab him.
Aragorn watched, feeling as though time had frozen as his friend let out a cry of surprise and pain, as another Orc took the opportunity to swing his blade at Legolas' side, and the Elf stumbled back in the snow, falling. Then Aragorn couldn't see him as the Orcs surrounded him, coming in for the kill….
Aragorn raced forward, plowing through the Orcs around him, yelling and just trying to get the Orc's attention away from his friend.
When he reached them, he was merciless. He saw only red as he killed them, as he killed all of them, until his vision grew blurry…
Aragorn blinked as he realized how tightly he was squeezing Legolas' hand, and immediately softened his hold.
"I'm so sorry," He whispered through the darkness and cold of the cave. "I will get us out of this."
He set his jaw, turning his head as he kept his watch on the snow outside.
"One way or another, we will get home."
-
So! That's the end to chapter 2!
I hope it's good enough….I literally rewrote four pieces of this chapter some three hundred times ;).
Special shoutout to those who reviewed, followed and gave me such good support! I appreciated each of them and was so happy I got them, you have no idea.
Thanks so much to:
Dean'sAngel6, White Ithiliel, TryniS, Tara07 and Mara jade chase for your support!
New chapter will be coming up soon, I promise! Again, thanks so much!